Chapter 35 Preparations for War
In the vast Soviet Union today, politics is undoubtedly in the forefront. Everything seems to serve politics, succumb to politics, and bow to politics. At the center of politics is undoubtedly the great Comrade Stalin. Everyone must listen to what he says, even if it is just a hint, everyone needs to carefully ponder and speculate.
Yuri had no way of knowing what was happening in Moscow. Of course, he had no way of knowing that the purge, which had lasted too long, had already caused dissatisfaction in many aspects, and that this dissatisfaction was exerting influence on the Kremlin. He only knew that the atmosphere that seemed to be brewing a storm suddenly became calm.
On the third day after the conversation with the working group, the 209th Battalion received a handwritten letter drafted by Comrade Stalin and forwarded by the Political Department of the Kiev Special Military District. Of course, Yuri believed that this letter was definitely not written by Comrade Stalin himself.
The letter was not written to Yuri himself, but to the entire 209th Battalion. The main content of the letter was to praise the outstanding performance of the entire 209th Battalion in the previous battle to defend the Lutsk radar station.
This kind of praise can only be regarded as verbal praise, without any benefits, but at this moment, it is crucial for Yuri and the entire 209th Battalion. For some people in the battalion, it can even be said to be a matter of life and death. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a matter of life and death. For example, Lieutenant Antip? If there is no letter, the situation he will face will definitely not be good. Even if he is not executed, he will probably be exiled. For Yuri, this letter is even more timely. Because of the existence of this letter, the working group withdrew quietly.
This turmoil was a test for Yuri, but fortunately, he withstood the pressure and passed the test successfully. His attitude of protecting the officers and soldiers in the battalion in front of the working group won everyone's respect to a large extent. In addition, since the entire army command was still in the midst of a vigorous cleansing campaign and the Kiev Military District was also undergoing large-scale adjustments, no one paid attention to the 209th Battalion in a short period of time. The political department of the army command did not even appoint a new political commissar. Without a political commissar, the 209th Battalion was completely controlled by Yuri .
Although the cleansing storm was over, the danger was not far away. Yuri would never forget that the German attack was imminent. Therefore, after the working group withdrew, he quickly ordered the officers and soldiers in the battalion to continue the previous training and in-depth exploration of the water network swamp area.
Because of the severe winter, the water network swamp area has become an ice field, which undoubtedly creates convenience for the exploration work of Battalion 209. January 7th is the traditional Russian Christmas (Orthodox Christmas). Although this traditional festival with a strong religious color has been banned since the establishment of the Soviet Union, especially after Comrade Stalin entered the Kremlin, people still celebrate it secretly in private.
On this day, the soldiers exploring to the northeast, after passing through a vast hilly woodland, entered the outskirts of the small town of Stepan. Continuing eastward from Stepan for 8 kilometers, they arrived at the winding Gorun River.
The entire swamp exploration work came to an end here. With this secret passage that had been explored for several months, Yuri was confident that he could lead his team into the vast swamp when the Germans launched an attack. After three days of forced march, they arrived at the Gorun River area hundreds of kilometers away and crossed the Gorun River via the Konuvichi Bridge near Stepan, thus avoiding the fierce border attack by the Germans.
If Yuri's thoughts were known, he would probably be shot. However, it seems that he can't be blamed. Yuri is not afraid of death, he just doesn't want to be cannon fodder and die meaninglessly.
Just after Christmas in the Russian calendar, Moscow once again adjusted the personnel arrangements of major Military District for less than half a year, was transferred to Moscow by a transfer order to serve as the Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Red Army. The person who replaced him as the commander of the Kiev Special Military District was Colonel-General Mikhail Petrovich Kirponos.
Admiral Kirponos, who was nearly 50 years old, was one of the most vigilant Soviet senior generals against the Germans. Yuri had seen his articles in the Red Star newspaper, in which he had always advocated strengthening the defenses in the border areas to prevent possible invasions by the Germans at any time.
The series of actions taken by Kirponos after taking over the Kiev Special Military District also fully demonstrated how strong his defensive mentality was against the Germans.
On January 17, the Kiev Special Military District Command issued an order to all subordinate units of the entire military district, requiring commanders of grassroots units to report the status of weapons and equipment of their units. In addition, it also required border defense forces stationed in border fortified areas to strengthen secret investigations into the movements of German troops on one side of the border.
A few days later, on January 24, Admiral Kirponos submitted a report to the General Staff in the name of the Kiev Special Military District Command. In this report, Kirponos asked the General Staff to allow him to mobilize border troops to enter the fortified area on the grounds that the German troops in the Przemyśl-Lublin section were dismantling border obstacles.
But it was not until a week later that the General Staff officially replied, rejecting General Kirponos' request on the grounds that the entry of border troops into fortified areas would likely provoke the German troops on the other side of the border and cause serious consequences.
By early February, border troops discovered that the German border garrison was increasing in size. At the same time, Romanian and Hungarian troops appeared in some places, which undoubtedly increased Kirponos's concerns again.
In mid-February, when the report was again rejected by the General Staff, General Kirponos began to reorganize the entire Kiev Special Military District to increase its combat effectiveness.
Despite the two consecutive rejections of the border troops' request to station in the fortified areas, Moscow has obviously become cautious and has begun to focus more attention on the southwest region with Kiev as the core. At the end of January and the beginning of February, in order to strengthen the strength of the Kiev Special Military District, the General Staff once again added an army group and two mechanized armies to the Kiev Special Military District on the basis of the original ones. So far, the Kiev Special Military District has a total of five army groups, namely the 5th, 6th, 9th, 12th, and 26th, and four hastily established independent mechanized armies, namely the 4th, 5th, 9th, and 15th.
Throughout February and March, the Kiev Special Military District was reorganizing its troops. General Kirponos divided all the district's troops into two large combat groups and placed them in key combat positions.
The first group was equipped with 20 infantry divisions, 3 tank brigades and 7 mechanized brigades, and its main responsibility was to defend the border areas of the Bug River and the Dniester River. The second group was equipped with 46 infantry divisions, and its main garrison area was between Chernivtsi and Kiev. At the same time, it could also serve as the reserve of the first group at critical moments.
The large-scale division of combat groups resulted in large-scale redeployment of the original bases of various troops. Fortunately, the 209th Battalion commanded by Yuri and its regiment headquarters did not receive any redeployment tasks, and guarding the radar station in the Lutsk area remained their mission.
For several months, Yuri's job was to strengthen the combat training of the 209th Battalion. In addition to training soldiers to use anti-tank trenches and foxholes as cover to snipe armored units with infantry, he also physical training. Yuri knew very well that with the few people under his command, it would be a pipe dream to snipe the German attack in the future war. What he needed was that his soldiers could at least fight the Germans when they attacked, and at the same time, they could maintain their combat effectiveness as much as possible when they were transferred.
Training like this is still very effective. It is still unknown what the results will be in actual combat, but the morale of the soldiers in the camp is much higher.
Entering April, especially in mid-to-late April, not only was Yuri becoming increasingly nervous, the entire Kiev Special Military District was shrouded in a strong atmosphere of war.
On April 29, Yuri received an order from the regiment headquarters and rushed to the army headquarters to attend an emergency meeting of all commanders at the battalion level and above.
At this meeting, Yuri learned that the Germans had already overcome all obstacles on their eastern front. Just two days ago, the war in the Balkans ended, and the fall of Belgrade and Athens meant that the last force that held back the Germans' eastward offensive had completely disappeared. The military district command believed that in the next month or two, the Germans would most likely launch an offensive against the Soviet Union, and Western Ukraine would become the first target of the German offensive.
In order to prepare for an attack that could come at any time, the military district command required all combat units above the battalion level to enter a state of alert, all weekend holidays for officers to be cancelled, all communications soldiers to maintain unimpeded communications between units, weapons and ammunition to be distributed to combat soldiers, and each soldier to ensure a minimum of 30 rounds of ammunition.
On May 13, General Kirponos' third application to the General Staff was finally approved. Immediately, the border garrison troops began to enter the fortified area to strengthen the defensive capabilities of the border fortifications.
On the same day, with the arrival of late spring and the softening of the frozen soil, Yuri no longer hid his intentions and began to order his soldiers to dig large-scale anti-tank trenches in the narrow corridors near the swamp in the Bredev jungle.
Yuri believed that once the German offensive reached Lutsk, the Soviet troops retreating to the other side of the Vistula River would definitely blow up the Volynsky Bridge as soon as possible. At that time, the German offensive forces would choose to move to the Bredev Forest area and intersperse in the direction of Lviv.
At that time, Yuri will command the 209th Battalion to block the German vanguard here. As long as he can cause certain losses to the German army, he will immediately choose to retreat into the swamp - he has never thought of being cannon fodder, never thought about it.
